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Saturday, March 29, 2014

My contribution comes from an old Photo of St Charles taken by Rudloph Goebel with comments by John J Buse.
Goebel was a German immigrant to our area in 1856 who set up a photographic studio in our town.
John J Buse was an avid collector of documents and clippings of his town.
Goebel and his assistant (and successor) John Gossler eventually gave Buse over two thousand photos which Buse then dutifully captioned.
These eventually, with the help of John's son, became two historical books for our county.

In the book are several pertaining to natural and man made disasters in our area.
I will leave John's caption to tell the story.

Every once in a while, when the river is low, they still find sections of old river boats.

I love it when I am happily surprised with a movie I was not expecting too much out of,
but hate when I am disappointed in one I waited a while to see, especially a Spielberg movie.

The Croods

This past weekend we actually took a Saturday night and sat down and watched a family movie together.
Our copy of Frozen hadn't arrived yet so we turned to Amazon Instant Video and rented one we all thought we would like to watch.
We (read I) chose The Croods. A Dreamworks Animation movie starring Nicholas Cage as the lead, well, cave-man. It describes itself as an Animated Comedy Adventure, and I think that is a pretty good description.
I had expected to be entertained but not much else. I was really surprised how fun the movie was.
The animation was excellent. The voice acting well done. And the one-liners were very, very funny.
We enjoyed it so much we had daughters grandma come over the next night while we still had the rental and watched it again. I ordered it to add to our collection. I know we will watch it again.

War Horse

War Horse is (was) one of those movies I had only heard good things about so waited till I had an un-interrupted night to watch it. A night when I could watch it on our big TV with the volume such that I could catch every thing, even with my bad ear.

I was expecting a real emotional story, with a great cast and a gritty environment.

Unfortunately right from the beginning I kept hoping it would get better.

The lead actor (not the horse) wasn't strong enough to carry the movie, even with some strong support from other cast members. Although the movie did have some top-notch actors in it, they were never allowed to be anything other than mediocre.

Right from the beginning the story proved very predictable and plodding.

And even thought the sets appeared to be very well down nothing seemed gritty enough. It felt very movie made up.

Although everyone was dirty, it didn't feel like the dirt would stick.

The battle scenes came no where near the intensity of Saving Private Ryan. They probably weren't meant to because it was geared to a different audience. But that being the case, they didn't carry the weight they need to. It stayed to far away from real, and again, never felt like anyone was really getting 'dirty'.

Lassie from a few nears ago carried more punch.

The sets appeared to be very well done, but then seemed over intense for something in the real world.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Yes, it's that time of the week again. When we all go to our dusty shoeboxes and search for something relevant to the theme. Or at least as close to relevant as we can.

I once again return to that cold November crossing of the North Atlantic of 1956.
And again we return to the deck of the Queen Elizabeth.
And again. . . my brother.
I, at the young age of 18 months, was not proving, I guess, to be very photogenic.

But the photo does have a great monument to all immigrants to this great land.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

I sometimes find Phyllis Schlafly's comments on NPR if not agreeable at least interesting.But now she is alienating good beer drinkers as well.Since St. Louis has lost, in most beer drinkers opinion, it's connection with Busch as a St Louis symbol, do we really want to loss a connection to really good beer?Us non-Busch drinkers still think it was wrong to have lost that icon of the city.But Phyllis's latest comments just goes to show, once again, how un-associated the Republican party is with it's working class base. She says, “In connection with its usage as a surname, it has the connotation of conservative values, which to millions of Americans (such as Baptists and Mormons) means abstinence from alcohol,” her filing with the trademark office states, “An average consumer in Saint Louis and elsewhere would think ‘Schlafly’ is a surname associated with me, and thus the registration of this name as a trademark by Applicant should be denied.”Well, she we be more likely to get my vote if she was associated with a good beer.Here is the whole story, or you can buy the paper.

You know where my vote would go.True, the story does not talk about Schlafly Beer losing the use of the name on it's beer's. Which kinda makes the debate even more silly if you ask me.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

As both of my two followers are keenly aware, I love good comic art. Whether it is in comic strips, comic books or animation. And the better it is drawn, the more I like it. Good comic art is high art.
And it can hardly be argued that many comics are better drawn (and painted) than Calvin and Hobbes.
Even now, after almost twenty years since the final strip, the books sell well and keep the strip alive.

Last night I had the chance to watch Joel Allen Schroeder's movie "Dear Mr. Watterson".
The movie doesn't so much go into the life of Bill Watterson as it does the appeal and longevity of Calvin and Hobbes.
The interviews with other comic artist's is well worth the price of admission alone.
Mr. Schroeder made a very personal documentary and also made a quality film. Well filmed and well edited.